NotsoWonderland
by Foxtail-Padfoot
Summary: Hatter's miserable in Alice's world, but when he returns, Wonderland isn't like he left it. Hatter x Alice.
1. Chapter 1

Not-so-Wonderland

**A/N: I've recently decided that Syfy's Alice is my favorite movie, thus trumping The Last Unicorn's place. (Yes, I write crime dramas and my favorite movie was The Last Unicorn. Deal with it.) Anyway, I decided in my haze of obsession and looking up actors that I would try my hand at both a first-person and an Alice fic. So here is a dark Hatter story… because, I love Andrew Lee Potts in all the (granted, only two) things I have seen him in.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Alice. Or Hatter. Really wish I did. Also, I am mildly changing plots, because the timeline confused me a bit so to make sense of it: Hatter's grandfather met Alice of Legend, to fit with Charlie being a child around that time and being about a hundred and fifty. (Though the change won't really come in till next chapter...)**

Chapter One

They told me it was better. That we should be… happy, or ecstatic, or lusting, but never sad. Never the bad, because then we should become upset, and being upset meant we would turn our upset onto the Queen of Hearts, and she would become angry as well. They told me it was better to pump the people of Wonderland full of, not tea, but these "pearls" of emotion gleaned from "oysters", people just like us but from the other side of the Looking-glass. And thus my tea shop became what it is.

I never tried it, the strong, passionate emotions of the oysters; I did not want to feel the rush of my blood boiling in fake lust or fascination. I wanted my emotions to be my own… I suppose that's how I became to be who I am.

Instead, I just sold it to the high and hoity of my world. Yeah, I know, how disgusting? Selling these fake, über-powerful emotions to the highest bidder? Emotions that could crash our systems? I always envied the oysters that, a power they didn't know they had, the power to kill us with their _feeling_. I always wanted to feel that powerfully, always wanted to be able to express myself so fully and completely. It doesn't come naturally to us.

Eventually, it took its toll, selling these "teas" to my people, my family, my friends. If friends they could be called. Anyway, I had known- being in the business that I was, catering to the addictions and every need of those who could pay- for some time about the Resistance, people that knew what this instant gratification system was doing to us. I figured, with the information I can gather from people looking for a fix of Love or Ecstasy, why not join this Resistance and fight the very trade that made my livelihood?

Well… Maybe just one- no, never a sip. I fought against the urge to feel, when the world came crashing down over my ears day after day as I watched the world fall apart in a cycle of rush and rise and rush and crash. Now look, I'm responsible for holding up a universe at the same time as I crash it down.

I can appreciate the irony of it, as can Dodo.

As can the others whose backs, I scratch on the Resistance side; of course, those who I scratch on the Heart side only are looking for their next fix.

Which I provide.

Hah! How easy is it to fall into that circle? How easy to slip down and away? How hard to fight? But I do, day after day. Day after day after day of watching Dormouse selling tea to those lazy addicts, until the one day that the fisher came in and said he had someone I would like to meet. Someone legendary.

Alice.

And I am Hatter.


	2. Chapter 2

Not-so-Wonderland

**A/N: Hmm, half-so response to chapter One, but I suppose it's only fitting seeing as Syfy Alice has only been out about two weeks. Anyway, this story is mostly for me, myself, and I, so I suppose I should be happy. :) Oh, any nonmembers, I allow and encourage anonymous reviews. ALSO, changing the drabble thing to an actual plotted story. It seems more fitting since I can't remember things from the movie as exactly as I could when I started writing. By the way, anyone know exactly where Alice lives in the movie? I don't remember it saying.**

**Disclaimer: Haven't seen Alice in Wonderland in forever, forgive my errors. I use them to my advantage.**

I gazed silently out over the active, bustling but dull London landscape. Why Alice loves this place so much, I'll never know, but she does. Sighing heavily, I unlocked the door to our little apartment and entered, smiling gently when I saw her reading by the warm light of a little lamp. _Alice in Wonderland._ When I closed the door, she looked up, and made a noise of interruption when I moved to put my hat on the hook by the door.

"Keep it on, please," she grinned. Rolling my eyes but obeying her, as I did everything, I move over to the chair. "How was your day?" she asked as I leaned in, silencing her with a kiss.

Setting her book aside as I sat down on the couch next to her, I sighed, "All right. I didn't get the job, though."

"There aren't very many tea shops that need employees, I guess," Alice murmured, watching my face carefully.

I nod absentmindedly, glancing around the room listlessly for several more moments, covering her hand with my larger one. Alice watched me closely again, pressing her lips gently against mine before saying, "You're not happy."

"No, I am," I defend, but it's halfhearted and she can tell. She pursed her lips and gave me that "I'm-so-mad-at-you" look that just made me want to kiss her again, but I resisted, seeing that's not what she wanted now.

It's not that I'm not happy with her. Alice has proven to be… fantastic, in so many ways, more so than I ever saw even back home.

Wonderland… It's still home, even if I play at being in a happy home here in Alice's world. It can never be my world. My world, the colors are more vivid, richer, brighter. My world, you don't have mundane, bare technology, my world, there is fantastic alongside the throwbacks of a previous time. My world, the world isn't limited. My world, I am at home. That's the most I can put into words;

"Is it me?" Alice asked softly, bringing me back to the here and now. My head snapped around, and I met her blue eyes.

"Alice, it could never be you."

She bit her lip, blue eyes searching my brown, and finally stood up. "You need a vacation, Hatter."

"To where?" I called as she walked to the door, tugging my hand gently before dropping it and putting on her coat. I stood up and followed, jogging to catch up.

There was a strong urge to gag in the night air… The smell of automobiles was so strong, the odor of gasoline and smog so heavy. That was another thing about my world, the air was _clean_ and pure and easy-to-breath.

I caught my breath when I realized where she was going. Grabbing her arm and spinning her around, I shook my head. "No, Alice! You won't go back with me, so why would I ever want to go back?" _Because that's where you belong,_ that voice in my head chided, but I pushed it away.

"You can't be at home here until you say goodbye to your home there," Alice murmured, pulling us together and looking up at me, her face in that pouty you-know-I'm-right look all girls have.

I roll my lips, studying her before nodding, more willingly than I would have liked. If only I had the willpower to say no to things like this… However, ever since I laid eyes on Alice I've been wrapped around her finger, and there's no going back, even if I wanted to.

So, we share a kiss goodbye, and I whisper to her, "Three days, in there."

"About an hour and a half, then," Alice laughed.

I smiled faintly, and walked to the Looking-glass. I fell through easily, slipping into that other world.

My world.


End file.
